The following list of tips is aimed at helping mothers, fathers and babysitters avoid demonic possession, premature mutilation and all varieties of body envelope violation.

Number one: When the kids start climbing the wall like a spider, run for your life. Chances are, nothing good will come of the child’s acrobatics — even if he or she can reach those track halogens without a cherry picker.

Number two: When trying to retrain a wild child raised by a rogue demon, try soft love, then tough love. And if that doesn’t work, run for your life.

Number three: When facing off against a spectral psycho with a maternity fetish, tell her that her newborn baby’s corpse is beautiful. Smile. Then scram!

In fact, you could ignore all three tips and just boot it in the opposite direction as fast as you can because running away from horror always seems to be a good idea — but that’s just me.

Certainly, the characters in this film have no immediate desire to pull up sticks and get out of Dodge, even when a ghost decides to move in to their suburban home and play nanny.

A little bit Exorcist and a little bit Others, Mama knows how terrifying children can be and ramps up every creep factor with the backstory for young Victoria and Lilly.

Orphaned in the wake of the financial crisis after their father flies into a homicidal rage and kills their mother, Lilly and Victoria find themselves in a cottage far outside of town. They have no one but miraculously they survive for five years in the wilderness by themselves. Or so it seems to the outside world.

We know better because director Andres Muschietti and producer Guillermo Del Toro show us a series of stick drawings on the wallpaper created in crayon. We see the forms of two young girls eating cherries, flying in the air and vomiting what looks like blood.

We also see a third form — a floating adult figure with long hair: Mama.

Only the girls can see Mama, at least at the beginning.

Once they are discovered and treated for psychological disorders, they move in with their uncle Lucas (Nicolaj Coster-Waldau) and his girlfriend Annabel (Jessica Chastain), who feel they may be taking on more than they can chew as first-time parents.

Their angst is the kind of stress everyone can relate to because kids can be a terrifying responsibility. They can also be a little creepy with those big eyes, imaginary friends and superior knowledge of iPhone apps.

For Lucas and Annabel, the addition of Victoria and Lilly presents several challenges but they seem to cope — one crisis at a time — until Lucas has his first encounter with Mama, and ends up falling down the stairs.

Now alone with the kids, Annabel is feeling entirely out of her element. She’s not the mothering type: She’s a Goth bass player who wears black clothes and sports a shiny black manicure.

She thinks the girls are high maintenance drama queens, but once she gets a sense she’s sharing her caregiving duties with an unseen force she cranks up her protective urges.

Rival mother figures always create great theatrics (think Sigourney and the Alien), and Chastain has the right blend of maternal softness and personal spunk to make us root for her brassy brand of caregiving.

Filling out the other side of the scorecard is Mama, an unattractive and entirely hollow paranormal apparition who wants to possess the young girls as her own, in all the wrong ways.

Because this has Del Toro’s footprints on it, the visuals for Mama are suitably scary. Half the time she appears as a grey wig floating across the floor, intermittently rising up to show us her full-length gauzy gown and alien eyes.

Of course, thanks to the earnest town librarian who wears glasses and trembles, we also learn Mama was once a mental patient who ran away from the hospital.

It’s one of the more laughable scenes in this otherwise eerie movie, and it’s entirely welcome because horror just gets draining after a while.

By the same token, it is a goofy moment and even the slightest ray of sun can make a well-constructed terror look benign.

That said, Mama has moments that can go either way, depending on your fear threshold. The real attraction is the emotional side of the story, where we get to watch Chastain grow into a rabidly protective parent while the kids struggle over who makes the better mom: Annabel or Mama.

With nods to everything from Hitchcock to Rosemary’s Baby, Mama proves a successful fright-fest, but one gets the feeling this movie could have been even creepier with a little more dramatic engagement and a few less special effects.

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.

Almost Done!

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.